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I've never seen such built up for a strong villain end in such stupid and confusing nonsensical for them to be defeated, and one of the characters built up to fight them only to make their plan be utterly useless, and instead depended on about 5 different deus ex machina pulled between various characters to achieve their victory and ignore rules previously put in place by the series with each of them making less sense than the last. The whole thing ultimate not only made no sense, but somehow managed to make such a battle extremely boring.

And to make matters worse, the characters either just acted like the real final villain is gone and everything was somehow solved because they defeated this villain, and are giving happily ever after type ending when it made no freaking sense, why foreshadow a final villain to only pretend he doesn't exist later, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THIS LOGIC AT ALL.

On another note, almost anything with a "reset" ending can go here. By nature they're inherently contradictory and usually never resolve the plot in anyway satisfactory.

Yes, that's true, as much as I love those shows that involved such an ending.

Spoiler for anime with "reset" endings:

Those include Clannad AS, Madoka Magica, Mawaru Penguindrum, and so on...

I think the only anime with a "reset" ending that I find satisfactory is Steins;Gate. The "reset" of the world is a theme that was used well throughout this show, and it was better explained than most other anime also.

Why is this ending baffling? Well that fact that in the end, all Aoba gets from Amamiya is her email. All 25 episodes for that? Kasuga and Yayoi confess and he's able to decline but they don't make it so he even asks Amamiya out. I know the anime is a harem and sorta like an "arc" (but not really), but considering the scenes with Kasuga and Yayoi, I would have expected a much better ending with Aoba and Amamiya than a simple email exchange. Throughout the series, there's a couple scenes where things get a little intense emotionally/romantically with Aoba and Amamiya; however, the end itself has no confession, no kiss, and not even a serious hug. They deserve each other tbh and I was hoping for a lasting ending.

They decided to use a combo of bad endings for the anime finale, but I remember reading somewhere that the anime was gonna have a happy ending at first. But the audience started to hate Makoto and they changed the ending at the last minute. Tried to find the site that had that info, but don't remember where I found it.

Spoiler for I have no idea why we are using spoiler tags in a spoiler thread.:

I've always wondered if the world has essentially been destroyed and turned into a desert wasteland, what has Homura been eating for the past XX days/months/years as she charges heroically off into the sunset at the end in Madoka Magica? She seems awfully hale for what is presumably the last human being alive.

My big thing with anime endings is that they should reflect the general feel and tone of the anime as a whole.

So if, for example, your show is all about kicking reason to the curb and overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles, then your ending should be about kicking reason to the curb and overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles...

If, on the other hand, your show is about a group of friends being forced into a Mortal Kombat-esque competition against each other and it results in a rather apocalyptic scenario playing out then maybe your ending shouldn't be all sunshine and lollipops.

Yes, that's the one. There are other problems with it too though. School Days and Clannad AS at least had buildup to their endings. Anohana's ending was godawful but it made "some" sense. That one had absolutely no buildup. It just came out of nowhere.

After rewatching the series many times I've come to accept the ending for Mai-HiME. I'd even go so far as to say that despite it's flaws I think it feels right for the series.

Spoiler:

Yes, there is a partial reset. But it's not a complete reset. Many characters changed because of their experiences over the course of the series and the ending preserved much of that character growth. Just take a look at Natsuki and how different she is at the end of the series from how she was at the start.

I also like the fact that the show set up its deus ex machina in advance of when it was actually used. (And the fact that it was partly a result of Midori's resolve to screw destiny -she's kind of the great unsung heroine of the series in some respects.)

I think it's also worth remembering who Mai-HiME's main protagonist is. Mai is a very kind and loving person, but even she had some difficulty when it came to forgiving Mikoto. Yet in the end she decided she loved Mikoto enough to not only forgive her, but risk her own life to save her as well. After what Mai did, would it have been fitting for everyone else to get into a squabble about who deserved forgiveness/punishment? Where would that even end given how many links there are in the chain? And how do you logically deal with some of what happened given the reversals that occurred?

Also, I like to believe that the various HiME recognised the miraculous second chance they were given for what it was and decided to live and let live rather than starting the cycle all over again (knowing that this time any damage they did would be permanent). Granted I do think it would make sense for them to sit down and talk things over as a group once things calmed down, because there were some apologies owed. But I can live without seeing those events on screen. I saw the hell those characters went through and I liked seeing them get happy endings. While a true grimdark ending to the series might have been impressive I question whether I would have rewatched it over and over if it had been given that type of conclusion.

My big thing with anime endings is that they should reflect the general feel and tone of the anime as a whole.

So if, for example, your show is all about kicking reason to the curb and overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles, then your ending should be about kicking reason to the curb and overcoming seemingly impossible obstacles...

If, on the other hand, your show is about a group of friends being forced into a Mortal Kombat-esque competition against each other and it results in a rather apocalyptic scenario playing out then maybe your ending shouldn't be all sunshine and lollipops.

But I have a more pertinent question for you. Would True Tears's ending be considered baffling?

True Tears' ending is a case where emotionally I would have preferred something different, but intellectually I get what it was aiming for and it did accomplish that pretty well. And even though I didn't emotionally like True Tears' ending, I wouldn't say it clashed with the overall feel and tone of the show. The second half of True Tears did have pretty thick and sometimes heavy drama - It was only True Tears' first half that I'd consider mostly lighthearted.